The present disclosure relates to devices arranged and constructed to accept surrenders of babies. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to a secured environmentally controlled device for the safekeeping of babies when surrendered at locations for retrieval by first responders.
Historically, a baby hatch or baby box is a place where people (typically mothers) can bring babies, usually newborn, and abandon them anonymously in a safe place to be found and cared for by someone other than the person who abandoned the baby. This kind of arrangement was common in the Middle Ages, when the device was known as a foundling wheel. A foundling wheel was a cylinder set upright in the outside wall of the building, and operated similar to a revolving door. Mothers could place the baby in the cylinder, turned it around so that the baby was inside the church, and then rang a bell to alert caretakers.
From the late 1100s, the first foundling wheels were used in Italy. Pope Innocent III decreed that these should be installed in homes for foundlings so that women could leave their baby in secret instead of killing them, a practice clearly evident from the numerous drowned infants found in the Tiber River. Foundling wheels were taken out of use in the late 19th century but a modern form, the baby hatch, began to be introduced again sometime in the 1950s and now are used to some extent in many countries, including Germany, Pakistan.
Generally, the hatches may be located in hospitals, social centers, fire departments, police stations, or churches, depending on the country of location. The hatches consist of a door or flap in an outside wall which opens onto a soft bed, heated or at least insulated. Sensors in the bed are used to alert caregivers when a baby has been put on the bed so that they can come and take care of the baby.
The first modern baby hatch was in South Africa in July 1999 and was installed by Door of Hope Children's Mission (Hole in the Wall) at a small mission church in Berea in Johannesburg. In 1999 the pastor, Cheryl Allen, and deacons learned with deep distress that a high number of newly born infants were abandoned. Pastor Allen realized that many of those desperate women and girls may well have acted differently if there had been an alternative. The church made a hole in their wall and a “baby bin” was installed allowing for mothers to leave their babies any time, day or night.
The moment a baby is placed on the bed in the “baby bin,” care workers on duty receive an electronic signal alerting them. The baby is taken in and the anonymity of the “donor” ensured. Baby M was the first baby that came through the “baby bin”, arriving on 3 Oct. 1999. The second modern baby hatch in Germany was installed in the Altona district of Hamburg in April 2000, after a series of cases in 1999 where children were abandoned and found dead from exposure. It consisted of a warm bed in which the baby could be placed from outside the building. After a short delay to allow the person who left the baby to leave anonymously, a silent alarm was set off which alerted staff.
In the past, a main reason many babies were surrendered was they were born out of wedlock. Today, baby hatches are more likely used by mothers who are in crisis for any number of reasons. For example, the mother may lack sufficient resources to care for the child, or the mother may be at a point in her life where she believes she is too old or too young to care for a baby. They want to surrender the baby to someone who is able to care for the baby, but do not wish to divulge their identity. In some countries, it is not legal for mothers to give birth anonymously in a hospital, and the baby hatch is the only way they can safely and secretly leave their baby to be cared for by others.
One of the shortcomings of existing systems is the lack of backup alarms to alert potential care givers that a baby has been left in the device. If the sensor fails, then a baby could be placed in the device and left there for an extended period of time before being discovered by a caregiver, thus endangering the health of the baby. Another shortcoming of existing systems is they are limited to locations that are staffed 24 hours a day so as to ensure there is always a caregiver available to retrieve and care for a baby left in the device.
What is needed is a system with multiple redundancies to ensure a caregiver is notified when a baby is placed in the device. What is also needed is a device that can be located in a building that is not necessarily staffed 24 hours/day, but can be quickly accessed by first responders from nearby locations when a baby is placed in the device. Embodiments of the present disclosure solve these and other problems with existing devices.